Spielberg to adapt Ready Player One gamer novel, may use Magic Leap tech for AR movie

Steven Spielberg is set to create a movie version of the gamer focused novel, Ready Player One.

This will be the first movie Spielberg has made with Warner Bros Studios since 2001 when he created AI: Artificial Intelligence. The studio is known for trying new technology to create worlds and is rumoured to be working with Magic Leap.

Magic Leap is a $1 billion Google-backed company that aims to re-invent augmented reality. It offers a kind of 3D that will kill current 3D as it tricks the brain into thinking objects are actually real.

Ready Player One is a sci-fi book by Ernest Cline set in 2044 telling the tale of a boy in a virtual reality quest to save the free world. The protagonist, Wade Watts, travels through various game worlds where the characters don't realise they're not real. The eighties references come thick and fast including a mention of Spielberg himself at one point.

Spoiler alert for this paragraph, skip below the video if you don't want to ruin the story. Games mentioned or visited in the book include Pac-Man, Joust, Dungeons of Daggorath, Zork, Robottron: 2084 and more.

If you have even a small appreciation for gaming, sci-fi or the eighties you must read this book.

While film adaptations can be hit and miss, the sci-fi experience of Spielberg and the eighties-focus of the book have us excited. Warner Bros Studios is a good partner having produced similar virtual worlds in The Matrix, Inception and The Lego Movie.

The novelist, Cline, is currently writing the script with Zak Penn who he worked with on the Atari: Game Over documentary. Penn also worked on X-Men: The Last Stand and The Avengers.

We expect there will still be a few years to wait on this, especially if the new Magic Leap technology is pioneered for cinema.